Roil Dancer
Animus. One of the many types of incredible magic, and also one of the most dangerous. Where mystics temper their animus through meditation and discipline, the martial mages known as roil dancers take the opposite route: if their power is harmful for them to use, they will simply outlast it. Roil dancers train their minds and bodies not to control, but to survive, emphasizing physical fitness and determination above all else as they prepare themselves for the battlefield. Maneuvers A roil dancer begins his career with knowledge of three martial maneuvers. The disciplines available to him are Elemental Flux, Mithral Current, Solar Wind, and Thrashing Dragon. A roil dancer gains Perform and Spellcraft as class skills. Once the roil dancer knows a maneuver, he must ready it before he can use it (see Maneuvers Readied, below). A maneuver usable by roil dancers is considered an extraordinary ability unless otherwise noted in it or its discipline’s description. A roil dancer’s maneuvers are not affected by spell resistance, and he does not provoke attacks of opportunity when he initiates one. The roil dancer learns additional maneuvers at higher levels, as indicated on Table: Archetype Maneuver Progression. The maximum level of maneuvers gained through roil dancer levels is limited by those listed in that table as well, although this restriction does not apply to maneuvers added to his maneuvers known through other methods, such as prestige classes or the Advanced Study feat. A roil dancer must meet a maneuver’s prerequisite to learn it. See the Systems and Use chapter in Path of War ''for more details on how maneuvers are used. Upon reaching 4th level, and at every even numbered initiator level thereafter (6th, 8th, 10th, and so on), the roil dancer can choose to learn a new maneuver in place of one he already knows. In effect, he loses the old maneuver in exchange for the new one. He can choose a new maneuver of any level he likes, as long as he observes the restriction on the highest-level maneuvers he knows; the roil dancer need not replace the old maneuver with a maneuver of the same level. He can swap only a single maneuver at any given level. A roil dancer’s initiation modifier is Constitution, and each roil dancer level is counted as a full initiator level. '''Maneuvers Readied' A roil dancer can ready all three of his maneuvers known at 1st level, and as he advances in level and learns more maneuvers, he is able to ready more, but must still choose which maneuvers to ready. A roil dancer must always ready his maximum number of maneuvers readied. He readies his maneuvers by focusing his furious energies for ten minutes. The maneuvers he chooses remain readied until he decides to practice again and change them. The roil dancer does not need to sleep or rest for any long period of time in order to ready his maneuvers; any time he spends ten minutes meditating or practicing, he can change his readied maneuvers. A roil dancer begins an encounter with all his readied maneuvers unexpended, regardless of how many times he might have already used them since he chose them. When he initiates a maneuver, he expends it for the current encounter, so each of his readied maneuvers can be used once per encounter (unless he recovers them, as described below). In order for the roil dancer to recover maneuvers, he must use his gather power ability (see below). Alternately, the roil dancer may take a moment to brace himself against his power, recovering a single maneuver as a standard action. Stances Known A roil dancer begins his career with knowledge of one stance from any discipline open to roil dancer. At 4th, 7th, 11th, and 13th levels, he can select an additional stance to learn. The maximum level of stances gained through roil dancer levels is limited by those listed in Table: Archetype Maneuver Progression. Unlike maneuvers, stances are not expended and the roil dancer does not have to ready them. All the stances he knows are available to him at all times, and he can change the stance he is currently maintaining as a swift action. A stance is an extraordinary ability unless otherwise stated in the stance or discipline description. Unlike with maneuvers, a roil dancer cannot learn a new stance at higher levels in place of one he already knows. This ability replaces the infusions gained at 5th, 9th, 13th, and 17th levels, as well as the utility wild talents gained at 4th, 8th, 12th, 16th, and 20th levels. Animus (Su) A roil dancer’s abilities are fueled by an explosive combination of inner strength and psychic might. Within his soul is a reservoir of roiling, turbulent energy, and the passion and danger of combat causes this arcane energy to overflow outwards. This power, called animus, waxes and wanes with a roil dancer’s use of his maneuvers in battle. Outside combat, a roil dancer has no animus to spend. When a roil dancer enters combat, he gains an animus pool equal to 1 + his roil dancer initiation modifier (minimum 1) at the start of his first turn, and adds one point of animus to his animus pool at the start of each of his turns thereafter. His animus pool persists for one minute after the last enemy combatant is defeated or the encounter otherwise ends. At the end of any round in which the roil dancer initiates a maneuver, he adds an additional point of animus to his pool. Certain abilities, such as some class features, maneuvers, and feats, require the roil dancer to expend points of animus to use. A roil dancer can spend points of animus to augment maneuvers initiated using his kinetic blade in the following way. If the roil dancer has the ability to augment his maneuvers in other ways, such as from another class feature or the maneuver itself, this cannot be combined with the augments granted by this class feature; he must choose which augmentation type to use when initiating the maneuver. * Fight Fire With Fire: ''When the roil dancer initiates a maneuver using his kinetic blade and would take burn from the blast or the infusions applied, he may spend animus to reduce the amount of burn taken by 1 point of burn per 2 points of animus spent. He can spend as much animus as he wishes when augmenting a maneuver in this way, but this does not allow him to go over the normal maximum amount of burn gained in a round—in effect, he shields himself from the burn after choosing to take it. * ''Ignition Surge: When the roil dancer initiates a maneuver that normally allows multiple attacks, he can spend animus to make the additional attacks with his kinetic blade ''(even though it normally only allows one attack). For every 3 points of animus spent, he can make up to one additional attack with one of his ''kinetic blades. He can spend as much animus as he wishes when augmenting a maneuver in this way, potentially allowing multiple attacks with multiple kinetic blades ''if he has a maneuver that allows it. The roil dancer can also accept burn to fuel maneuvers that have an animus augment. Whenever he initiates such a maneuver, he can accept 1 point of burn to augment further. He is treated as having spent 1 additional point of animus, even over the normal maximum augment on his maneuvers. For example, a 7th-level roil dancer could initiate the elemental strike maneuver and spend two points of animus (his normal maximum), then accept a point of burn of burn to further increase his strike’s damage and save DC by 1d6 and +1, respectively. He must still follow the normal restrictions on the amount of burn he can accept during a round. '''Focused Flux (Su)' A roil dancer chooses an elemental focus at 1st level like a normal kineticist, but his choice also carries over to his use of the Elemental Flux and Solar Wind disciplines. Regardless of which element is his current active element, any time a maneuver or stance of those disciplines refers to an energy type (such as for dealing damage, granting or ignoring resistances, or even gaining an immunity), it uses one of the following damage types instead, based on the roil dancer’s primary elemental focus. The roil dancer can still change his active element, and will still gain any additional non-damage effects of his active element’s maneuvers or stances. * Aether: The roil dancer rends his foes with telekinetic blades, dealing slashing damage.* * Air: The roil dancer fires lightning at his foes, dealing electricity damage. * Earth: The roil dancer creates cruel spikes of stone, dealing piercing damage.* * Fire: The roil dancer sets his foes ablaze, dealing fire damage. * Water: The roil dancer freezes his foes solid, dealing cold damage. * Void: The roil dancer crushes his foes with gravity, dealing bludgeoning damage.* * Wood: The roil dancer infuses his foes with pure life, dealing positive energy damage. *Bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage dealt in this way is treated as magical and affected by damage reduction. If the roil dancer would gain the ability to ignore resistances of that type, he instead ignores an equal amount of damage reduction. If the roil dancer gains a resistance or immunity to one of these damage types from a maneuver or stance, these still function as normal, reducing damage of that type as appropriate. A roil dancer’s resistances or immunities to a physical damage type apply to all attacks that deal that damage type, even ones that are also other types of damage. This ability alters elemental focus, but does not cause the roil dancer archetype to be incompatible with other archetypes that alter the elemental focus class feature. Gather Power (Ex) A roil dancer’s power comes from within as well as without. Thus, in order to gather power, a roil dancer must spend points of animus. It costs him 1 point of animus to gather power as a move action, and 2 points of animus to gather power as a full-round action. When the roil dancer gathers power as a move action, he can recover a single expended maneuver. When he gathers power as a full-round action, he can recover a number of expended maneuvers equal to his roil dancer initiation modifier (minimum 2) after gathering power. A roil dancer with the supercharge class feature recovers one additional maneuver when he gathers power (regardless of the action used). He cannot recover a maneuver he initiated since the end of his last turn with this ability, and still recovers maneuvers even if his gather power is interrupted by an opponent. This ability alters gather power. Kinetic Blademaster (Su) At 1st level, a roil dancer gains kinetic blade ''as a bonus wild talent. He can use this wild talent as part of initiating martial maneuvers that use weapons (including counters that require him to make an attack roll), and reduces its burn cost by 1 when doing so. If the maneuver allows the roil dancer to make attacks with multiple weapons (including by the Thrashing Dragon Pounce feat or similar effects), he may use the ''kinetic blade ''wild talent multiple times to create the appropriate amount of weapons (paying any burn costs as normal, and potentially creating ''kinetic blades ''that use different kinetic blasts if he wishes). He is treated as having drawn his ''kinetic blade ''during the maneuver for the purposes of Mithral Current maneuvers and similar effects. Full attack maneuvers count as allowing two weapons, allowing the roil dancer to create two ''kinetic blades. A roil dancer can only use a given kinetic blade ''for one attack when initiating a maneuver, unless he augments the maneuver with his ignition surge ability. If he initiates a maneuver that allows or requires ranged attacks, the roil dancer can use his ''kinetic blade to make such attacks as a thrown weapon with a range increment of 30 feet. The roil dancer also gains these benefits and any other benefits from this archetype with the kinetic whip ''wild talent, if he later gains it. '''Kinetic Blast (Sp)' A roil dancer’s kinetic blast deals less damage than other kineticists. At 1st level, it functions as normal, but rather than increasing its damage at every two kineticist levels beyond 1st, it increases at 4th level and every four kineticist levels thereafter. Thus, a simple physical blast’s base damage would be 1d6+1 at 1st level, 2d6+2 at 4th level, 3d6+3 at 8th level, and so on. Composite blasts have their damage progression similarly reduced. This ability alters kinetic blast, but does not cause the roil dancer archetype to be incompatible with other archetypes that alter the kinetic blast class feature. Metakinesis (Su) When a roil dancer empowers or maximizes a kinetic blast, the effect only applies to the blast itself; it does not increase or maximize the damage dealt by maneuver or stances. Roil dancers cannot quicken their kinetic blade or kinetic whip wild talents, nor can they use those talents twice with the same action when they reach 17th level. This ability alters metakinesis, but does not cause the roil dancer archetype to be incompatible with other archetypes that alter or replace the metakinesis class feature. Category:Source: Divergent Paths: Roil Dancer Category:Kineticist archetypes